Method for determining hand hygiene compliance

ABSTRACT

A hand hygiene compliance benchmark is determined for a target institution based on observations of hand hygiene opportunities in a studied institution and relationships between the number of observed hand hygiene opportunities and characteristics of the studied institution. The benchmark for the target institution is determined based on target institution characteristics and the relationships between institution characteristics and observed hand hygiene opportunities of the studied institution. The benchmark for the target institution may be adjusted based on direct observation of hand hygiene opportunities in the target institution.

STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT

Not applicable.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application makes reference to, claims benefit of, andclaims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/556,680,filed Nov. 7, 2011, which is hereby incorporated herein by reference, inits entirety.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Hand hygiene is essential for certain activities and services, includingparticularly healthcare and food preparation and service. The inventionconcerns determining the compliance by workers with hand hygieneguidelines.

For healthcare providers, the spread of healthcare acquired infectionsalso known as HAI's has been an ever increasing challenge in healthcarefacilities. HAIs can result from transmission of bacteria, viruses andother disease causing micro-organisms from various sources such as apatient or environmental surfaces to another patient or surface via thehands of healthcare workers. Such transmission can result in aninfection of a patient who was previously not infected. Health carefacilities have battled MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphylococcusaureus) and VRSA (vancomycin-resistant staphylococcus aureus) and otherdrug resistant micro-organisms for many years. These problems have beenmore apparent in recent years. It is estimated that approximately2,000,000 such HAIs occur annually in the U.S. alone resulting in about100,000 deaths. The extra costs associated with these infections areestimated in the billions of dollars.

Healthcare institutions seek to prevent and control the spread of HAIs.One important aspect of such efforts is seeking to ensure that healthcare professionals comply with hand hygiene best practices. Hand hygienecan be accomplished by washing with soap and water and by using liquidssuch as a sanitizing product which does not require water or rinsing ofthe product.

Hand hygiene is also recognized as essential in the food industry toprevent the spread of foodborne bacteria and/or viruses includingNorovirus, the Hepatitis A virus, Salmonella Typhi, Shigella spp., andEscherichia coli (E. coli) O157:H7 or other Enterohemorrhagic or Shigatoxin-producing E. coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella spp. andStreptococcus pyogenes. Hand washing by food employees is essentialafter activities that contaminate hands and before activities duringwhich pathogens may be spread to food.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

An aspect of the invention concerns assuring that workers conform tobest practices for hand hygiene.

Another aspect of the invention concerns determining the compliance ofworkers with hand hygiene guidelines within a facility that requireshand hygiene.

Yet another aspect of the invention concerns determining the complianceof healthcare workers with hand hygiene guidelines within a healthcareinstitution.

An additional aspect of the invention concerns determining thecompliance of workers with hand hygiene guidelines within individualareas of a facility in which different activities that require handhygiene occur at different locations within that facility.

Still another aspect of the invention concerns determining thecompliance of healthcare workers with hand hygiene guidelines withinindividual areas of a healthcare institution.

Yet an additional aspect of the invention concerns determining theamount of hand hygiene activity within a facility that is consistentwith hand hygiene guidelines.

Another aspect of the invention concerns determining the amount of handhygiene activity within an area of a healthcare facility that isconsistent with hand hygiene guidelines.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a sketch showing the five moments for hand hygiene in ahealthcare setting.

FIG. 2 is a graph of the observed number of observed hand hygieneopportunities per patient day vs. the average number of patients pernurse and a linear relationship between them based on regressionanalysis.

FIG. 3 is a graph of the observed number of hand hygiene opportunitiesper 24 hour period and a comparison showing that the video monitoringbenchmark and the benchmark based on the original HOW2 study arestatistically equivalent.

FIG. 4 is a graph of hand hygiene compliances based on directobservation, video observation and on dispenser usage utilizing acalculated benchmark.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

The invention concerns monitoring compliance with hand hygieneguidelines by workers. In one aspect, the invention concerns estimatingthe number of hand hygiene events that should occur within an areaduring a period of time. The present invention is described hereinafterby reference to the accompanying drawings and the following descriptionthat disclose embodiments of the invention. This invention may, however,be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed aslimited to the embodiments set forth herein or to any aspect of thatembodiment. Rather, this embodiment is an example of the invention,which has the full scope indicated by the claims.

The World Health Organization has identified five moments of handhygiene in a healthcare setting. Those five moments for hand hygieneactions are shown generally by FIG. 1 at 10. Specifically, the fivemoments for hand hygiene actions are before patient contact 12, beforeperforming an aseptic task 14, after body fluid exposure risk 16, afterpatient contact 18 and after contact with patient surroundings 20. Handhygiene actions can be sanitizing with a sanitizing product which doesnot require water or rinsing off or alternatively it can be washing withsoap and water. These five moments provide guidelines for hand hygienewithin a healthcare setting.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommends that food workersshould wash hands when entering a food preparation area; before puttingon gloves, including between glove changes; before engaging in foodpreparation; before handing clean equipment and serving utensils; whenchanging tasks an switching between handling raw foods and working withready to eat (RTE) foods; after handling soiled dishes, equipment, orutensils; after touching bare human body parts, for example parts otherthan clean hands and clean, exposed portions of arms; after using atoilet; after coughing sneezing, blowing his or her nose, using tobacco,eating, or drinking; and after caring for or handling services animalsor aquatic animals such as molluscan shellfish or crustacean in displaytanks. Food workers should also wash their hands after any activity thatcontaminates their hands. These recommendations provide bases forguidelines for hand hygiene in food facilities in which these activitiesoccur. Other national food safety agencies similarly recommend good handhygiene practices, including the Food Standards Agency of the UnitedKingdom, the European Commission, and Food Standards Australia and NewZealand.

Food safety agencies, including the FDA have developed recommendationsfor managing facilities based on Hazard Analysis and Critical ControlPoint (HACCP) systems. Hand hygiene guidelines have been included insystems that are based on HACCP analysis. HACCP is based on sevenprinciples, the fourth of which is monitoring critical control points.Where hand hygiene is essential, HACCP principles call for monitoring ofhand hygiene.

Other government, health and safety organizations have developed otherrecommendations for practices to prevent spread of bacteria, viruses andmicroorganisms within facilities. Hand hygiene guidelines can beimportant in clean room and sterile environments for pharmaceutical andother manufacturing for which pathogens and contaminants must beminimized. Hand hygiene is also important to maintaining safe andhealthy environments. Hand hygiene recommendations for all suchactivities and facilities can form bases of desired best practices handhygiene guidelines.

After developing such guidelines and informing and educating workersconcerning the guidelines, monitoring compliance with such guidelines isdesirable to achieve the goals that the guidelines were developed toreach.

Hand hygiene compliance is generally considered to be the number oftimes that hand hygiene occurs as compared to the number of times thatit should occur. If a worker only washes or sanitizers his or her hands6 out of the 10 times that they should have, they are said to exhibit acompliance rate of 60%.

Measuring healthcare worker adherence to hand hygiene guidelines is nota simple matter. There are no proven standards or benchmarks that may beused. The Joint Commission on the Accreditation of HealthcareOrganizations (JCAHO) requires monitoring hand hygiene compliance foraccreditation yet prescribes no specific way to do so. There is a veryclear need to measure hand hygiene compliance in healthcare facilities,and therefore a need to determine whether or not a hand hygiene actionoccurred when there was an indication for a hand hygiene action.

Measuring food worker adherence to hand hygiene guidelines is also notstraightforward. While activities have been identified before which andafter which a worker should wash his or her hands, methods fordetermining compliance with guidelines that are based on such activitieshave not been developed for food handling, preparing or servingactivities or facilities. Similarly, other facilities in which handhygiene is important, such as food service and processing facilities,share the need to determine whether hand hygiene guidelines are compliedwith. Again, there is a clear need to develop hand hygiene guidelinesbased on these activities for which hand hygiene is required and tomeasure compliance with those guidelines.

There are a number of ways to measure hand hygiene compliance namelydirect observation, remote observation, self-reporting and dispenserusage data or product usage data. Each way has its own benefits andchallenges.

Direct observation can determine compliance directly by observing bothwhether hand hygiene should occur and whether it does. However, directobservation is both time consuming and costly. Generally directobservation data is only collected for a small sample of the total ofhand hygiene opportunities and thus has a typically low level ofstatistical reliability. The data is subject to bias from over or undersampling of certain shifts and units. As well, it has been shown thatthere are also issues regarding inter-rater (observer) reliability andtherefore it is difficult to compare the results from one observer orrater with another.

Further, it has been shown that when people know they are being watchedor studied there is a greater likelihood that their compliance will behigher than it would be otherwise. This is known as the HawthorneEffect. Evidence supporting this is found in a 2009 German study thatcompared product usage data with direct observation data and found thatthe direct observation compliance rate was 2.75 times higher than thatfor product usage. Scheithauer S, Haefner H, Schwanz T, Schulze-SteinenH, Schiefer J, Koch A, Engels A, Lemmen S W., Compliance with HandHygiene on Surgical, Medical, and Neurologic Intensive Care Units:Direct Observation Versus Calculated Disinfectant Usage, Am. J. Infect.Control. 2009 December; 37(10):835-41.

Remote observation such as by video can operate at any time of day ornight and in any location. Remote observation is less subject to biasfrom over or under sampling of certain shifts and units than directobservation by an observer or rater. Remote observation is less apparentthan direct observation by an observer and is therefore less likely toaffect workers' practices. Data collection by remote observation isexpensive because it requires installation and maintenance of the videoequipment as well as the time to review the video. Remote observationcan be subject to bias based on the video location within the facility.Review is subject to the same lack of inter-rater reliability as directobservation. Further, remote video observation raises privacy concerns.

Product usage is gaining acceptance by professionals as a more accuratemeasure of true rate of compliance with hand hygiene guidelines. Intypical commercial and professional environments, hand hygiene liquidsare stored and dispensed onto hands from dispensers, therefore there isa direct correlation between dispenser usage or activations and handhygiene events being performed. Monitoring dispenser usage has theadvantage of being less costly than direct or remote observation of handhygiene. Further, dispenser usage provides an overall measure of use andit is not subject to selection bias.

There are a number of further advantages to monitoring dispenser usage.Specifically, in addition to being less costly, monitoring dispenserusage is less resource intense and therefore more efficient thanobservation. Dispenser usage can be monitored manually orelectronically. Dispenser usage monitoring allows organization-widetrends to be tracked over time. It can be unobtrusive and designed totake up little additional space. Dispenser usage can be easily measuredacross all shifts, twenty-four hours a day, and seven days a week. Itrequires minimal staff training. Dispenser usage monitoring can easilybe done in many different settings. However, dispenser usage data doesnot provide feedback for indications or technique. Further, it does notidentify low-performing individual staff members.

Dispenser usage does not directly provide a measure of hand hygienecompliance as does direct observation. Dispenser usage identifies thenumber of times that hand hygiene occurred. In order to determinecompliance with a hand hygiene guidelines based on dispenser usage data,the number of times that hand hygiene should have occurred for theguideline to be complied with must be known. This number of hand hygieneevents required for compliance with hand hygiene guidelines is referredto as a benchmark.

In one embodiment of the present invention, a predetermined benchmarkand dispenser usage in an area of interest alone is used to calculate acompliance rate based on dispenser usage. In another embodiment, apredetermined benchmark is adjusted based on direct observation data andsurvey data that is relevant to the area of interest. For example in ahealthcare facility, self-reported data or patient survey data may beused to provide consolidated hand hygiene information. In a healthcarefacility, dispenser usage data can be used with facility and activityinformation to determine the product volume used per patient day or thenumber of times the dispenser was used per patient day.

To determine the measure of hand hygiene guideline compliance bydispenser usage, the facility being monitored is provided with aplurality of dispensers. The facility may be divided into predeterminedgroups of interest. The facility may be a healthcare facility includinga teaching hospital, a non-teaching hospital, a long term care facility,a rehabilitation facility, a free standing surgical center, a healthcare professional office, a dental office, a veterinarian facility and acommunity care facility as well as other health care settings in whichhand hygiene compliance is an important issue. The facility may beanother facility in which hand hygiene is important and should bemaintained such as at various stages in food preparation and serviceincluding abattoirs, preparing precooked foods and restaurants.

In order to determine compliance with hand hygiene guidelines based ondispenser usage one needs the number of hand hygiene events thatactually occurred and a benchmark. The number of actual hand hygieneevents and predetermined benchmark may be for a predetermined area orgroup and for a predetermined time. The usage may be measured for eachdispenser in the predetermined group in practically real time and thecaptured data is transmitted electronically. The number of hand hygieneevents within a predetermined time period equals a number of times thedispenser has been activated and wherein multiple activations within apredetermined activation period are considered a single dispenser usageevent. It is not uncommon that when someone uses a dispensing systemthat rather than merely activating once, they activate the dispensermultiple times. Accordingly to accurately determine the correct numberof dispenser usage events the number of times the dispenser is activatedis determined. However where there are multiple activations within apredetermined activation period that is considered a single dispenserusage event. The benchmark is the number of times the dispenser shouldhave been used for a predetermined group over a predetermined timeperiod.

The dispenser usage compliance rate is the number of dispenser usageevents divided by a predetermined benchmark. The predetermined benchmarkmay be particular to the predetermined group and activity of the group.To determine the benchmark for the predetermined area and time, oneneeds to determine the hand hygiene occurrences that should occur. For ahealthcare facility, the benchmark number of hand hygiene occurrencesthat should occur may depend on the number of patients for thepredetermined area and time and on the nature of the activity in thepredetermined area.

Benchmarks for dispenser usage in a facility may be predetermined forthe facility and for each area of interest in a facility by direct orremote video observation. Determining benchmarks this way is timeconsuming and requires significant effort. Rather than predeterminebenchmarks for each facility and for each area of a facility, benchmarksare predetermined based on a selected hand hygiene guideline byobservation within areas of a facility in which activities occur forwhich the guidelines apply. Benchmark relationships are determinedbetween the benchmarks determined by observation and characteristics andactivity of the facility. Based on these benchmark relationships,benchmarks may be predetermined for other facilities in which activitiesoccur for which the guidelines apply based on the characteristics andactivity of the other facility for which benchmark relationships havebeen determined.

For example, the number of hand hygiene occurrences that are consistentwith the WHO five moments can be correlated with hospital conditions andactivities which may include the case mix index (CMI), the ratio of thenumber of healthcare workers to the number of patients, and the natureof the specific unit of a healthcare facility. By use of suchcorrelative relationships, a benchmark number of hand hygieneopportunities can be predetermined for units of a hospital based onobserved numbers of hand hygiene opportunities for a different hospital.

A benchmark for a healthcare facility may be predetermined based on thenumber of hand hygiene events that occurred in two hospitals that weredirectly observed to identify the occurrences of the five moments ofhand hygiene identified by the World Health Organization. One hospitalwas a teaching hospital and tertiary care center and the other was acommunity hospital. In each hospital, direct observations were made inthree different types of nursing units, an adult medical-surgicalintensive care unit, an adult medical inpatient ward, and an emergencydepartment. Observations were made for all week days and all shiftsduring a three month period. These observations identified 6,640 handhygiene opportunities during 436.7 hours of observations. Theseobservations are described in more detail by “Hospital Hand HygieneOpportunities: Where and when (HOW2)? The How2 Benchmark Study”, Steedet al., Am. J. Infect. Control 2011; 39:19-26, which is incorporatedherein by reference. That paper reports the number of observed handhygiene opportunities based on each of the WHO five moments. This paperreports observation of hand hygiene opportunities, rather than observedcompliance. These observations provide the number instances during theobservations when hand hygiene should occur.

The number of times that hand hygiene should occur as shown by this dataobtained by direct observation can be correlated to conditions thatexisted in the hospitals in which the observations were made, and can becorrelated to number of occurrences of one or more of the conditionsunder which hand hygiene should occur. FIG. 2 shows an example of arelationship that can provide the number of hand hygiene opportunitiesin a hospital based on the ratio the number of patients to the number ofnurses. FIG. 2 shows that a strong correlation exists between the numberof hand hygiene opportunities and the average number of patients pernurse within the observed hospital units that are the basis of thatgraph. FIG. 2 shows a linear relationship that was determined byregression analysis between hand hygiene opportunities per patient dayand the average number of patients per nurse.

The patient nurse ratio was the basis for two relationships were derivedusing linear regression analysis. For intensive care units, therelationship between the number of hand hygiene opportunities perpatient day and the average number of patients per nurse is given by:

HH=199.01−33.03*PNR

Where

HH is the number of hand hygiene opportunities per patient day.

PNR is the average number of patients per nurse.

For non-intensive care medical units, the relationship between thenumber of hand hygiene opportunities per patient day and the averagenumber of patients per nurse is given by:

HH=119.53−15.03*PNR

Where HH and PNR are as identified above. These relationships may beused to determine the denominator for determining hand hygienecompliance in ICU and non-ICU medical units.

A hand hygiene benchmark may be predetermined for a healthcareinstitution based on studies in which hand hygiene activities wereobserved and on correlations that are determined between conditions thatexist in the studied institution and the observed hand hygieneactivities. The identified correlations may be used to calculate a handhygiene benchmark for a healthcare institution based on conditions inthat institution. Benchmarks determined by such methods can be validatedor adjusted based on observations in the healthcare institution or in aspecific unit of the institution. Direct observations may be made todetermine the validity of benchmarks determined by these relationshipsin that facility or unit. Should observations fall within the intervalof twice the 95 percent confidence level, the relationship should beconsidered valid. If observations do not fall within that range, therelationship would be adjusted to conform to the specific unit.

FIG. 3 shows the results of a validation study in which hand hygieneopportunities were observed via videotaping for eight patients and theaverage number of hand hygiene opportunities per 24 hour perioddetermined. The average number of hand hygiene opportunities per 24 hourperiod was determined for all patient observations and compared to theprediction based on the HOW2 study referred to supra. As shown by FIG.3, the predicted number of hand hygiene opportunities and the observednumber are statistically equivalent.

FIG. 4 shows the observed hand hygiene compliance rates for a period ofone year for thirteen patents with the 95% confidence range. FIG. 4shows compliance rate based on dispenser usage data and calculatedbenchmarks (DebMed GMS), compliance rate based on video observations andcompliance rate based on direct observation. As shown by FIG. 4, thehand hygiene compliance rate determined based on dispenser usage andcalculated benchmark closely approximates the video observed data whilethe direct observation shows that direct observation overestimatescompliance.

Other observed factors can be a basis for determining a hand hygienebenchmark based on direct observation data. A strong relationship hasbeen demonstrated between the number of hand hygiene opportunities in ahealthcare facility and the patient nurse ratio. As is apparent from theformulas set out above, the nature of the unit within a healthcarefacility is a significant factor for the number of hand hygieneopportunities. However, the differences between healthcare institutionswere not a significant factor. This relationship should therefore beappropriate for hospitals of many sizes and care levels. Suchrelationships may also be demonstrated for other characteristics.

It is evident that this method both determines a benchmark and thecompliance rate with reasonable accuracy. The more regular theactivities within a facility in which hand hygiene is a concern, themore accuracy can be expected of the benchmarks and hand hygienecompliance ratios determined by this method.

I claim:
 1. A method for predetermining the benchmark number of handhygiene opportunities for a target facility: determining a studybenchmark number of hand hygiene opportunities in a studied facilityduring an observation period; identifying studied facilitycharacteristics of the studied facility during the observation period;identifying study relationships between studied facility characteristicsand the study number of hand hygiene opportunities; determining targetfacility characteristics for the target facility; and determining abenchmark number of hand hygiene opportunities for the target facilitybased on study relationships and target facility characteristics.
 2. Themethod for predetermining the benchmark number of hand hygieneopportunities for a target facility of claim 1 wherein the studiedfacility and the target facility are healthcare facilities.
 3. Themethod for predetermining the benchmark number of hand hygieneopportunities for a target facility of claim 1 wherein studyrelationships are identified based on linear regression analysis.
 4. Themethod for predetermining the benchmark number of hand hygieneopportunities for a target facility of claim 2 wherein studied facilitycharacteristics include a ratio of the number of patients in the studiedfacility during the observation period to the number of nursesresponsible for patient care during the observation period.
 5. Themethod for predetermining the benchmark number of hand hygieneopportunities for a target facility of claim 2 wherein the studybenchmark number of hand hygiene opportunities are based on one or moreof the five moments of hand hygiene identified by the World HealthOrganization.
 6. The method for predetermining the benchmark number ofhand hygiene opportunities for a target facility of claim 1 wherein thestudied facility and the target facility are food preparationfacilities.
 7. The method for predetermining the benchmark number ofhand hygiene opportunities for a target facility of claim 6 wherein thestudy benchmark number of hand hygiene opportunities are based on one ormore of the FDA recommended circumstances when a food worker should washhis or her hands.
 8. The method for predetermining the benchmark numberof hand hygiene opportunities for a target facility of claim 2 whereinstudied facility characteristics include a case mix characterization ofthe healthcare activity during the observation period.
 9. The method forpredetermining the benchmark number of hand hygiene compliance benchmarkfor a target facility of claim 1 further comprising: determining bydirect observation the number of hand hygiene opportunities in thetarget facility; comparing the observed number of hand hygieneopportunities in the target facility to the determined benchmark numberof hand hygiene opportunities for the target facility; and adjusting thebenchmark to be consistent with the observed number of hand hygieneopportunities in the target institution.